In Lesbian World, Stan Shaw was Big George in Fried Green Tomatoes. It was the 1990s, a mainstreaming of queer films in mainstream theatres made for heterosexual audiences.

I am probably the only lesbian who wrote a fan letter to a cast member and it was not any of the women. I wrote an email fan letter to Stan Shaw – and he was gracious enough to actually answer my email with an elegant reply.

I wrote to tell him how inspiring his character was, and how the movie helped me to cope with grief, the loss of my Uncle Gus. I shared with him, my experience of the movie as cathartic.

He thanked me for sharing my story and how much it meant to actors to learn that what they do really deeply impacts people.

As a bonus, he also told me how much fun it was on set and what a great pair of gals the leads were to work with.

I don’t know who won the Oscar that year in the category that Cicely Tyson should/could have been nominated in, she should have one on her award shelf.

So should have Stan. I bought this on VHS, I home taped the extended version they broadcast on tv, and it really showed how much a movie can change in just 10 seconds.

Idgie spying on Ruth teaching the children.

I bought it on DVD and even managed to get a bonus documentary on VHS that was promotioned to Video Stores. I would expect it would be the bonus doc on a fancy set on Blu Ray…. the last physical format – and remember, no one re-watches as much as they thing they do….the future is streaming, Catalog Subscriptions or pay per view streaming.

It is certainly the first movie to make cannibalism freaking funny. I saw this movie three times in the movie theatre, it was around $7.00 an adult ticket, the first time with my cousin, following a family funeral, the next with a friend, and the third time on a date.

Talking about “Ruth and Idgie” or “Xena and Gabrielle” or enjoying kd lang or Melissa Etheridge in public became ways to identity ourselves to each other in the mainstream.

At the White Spot, a British Columbia Chain Restaurant, I was arguing with the brother of the woman I was dating about the movie – him insisting that Ruth and Idgie were not a couple.

The cute babydyke waitress came over and I said “Ruth and Idgie.” flat toned, not even a question.

She burst into gushing over them as a romantic couple.

I looked at the guy and said “Did I prompt her in any way?”

Gaydar… on the radar or off it….blending and camouflage, survival… Visibility

c’mon, grow up people… it’s all about seeing people eye to eye, as people, not social positions…

The Crying Game, the word of No Spoilers being the very marketing slogan. Peter’s Friends, Desert Hearts, Friend Green Tomatoes, Bar Girls, When Night is Falling, and on tv Xena and Gabrielle on Xena Warrior Princess and on Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Witch Willow the geeky sidekick who started crushed on Xander, the boy who would be wonder, dated Oz, the laconic Werewolfe, then Tara the silent Wiccan, then Kennedy a junior Slayer… fluidity of sexuality indeed. The Birdcage, La Cage Au Folles, Brokeback Mountain and decades of cinematic subtext. Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Climax – Cinemax, Technicolor, blue screens tech to blu ray discology… I do recall that there was a multi color lazer disc that can hold an entire studio catalog… archivablity includes retrievability… create data, access and store it in a retrieval manner. when it is still machine readable and transferable.

Fannie Flagg, the goofball red head goofy girl next door on daytime 1970s talk and games shows – Lesbian.

Not really comparable to Garbo’s “I vant to be let alone” which is misquotes as “I want to be alone” in various Bela Lugosi accent….

then…. Prop 8 in California, when the state gave rights to caged chickens and took away marriage from queers generally, but also a few thousand marriages/families.

Because the Mormon Church illegally paid for advertising, combined with intentionally poor and confusing language used in the ballot, plus prejudice and it was mostly the black christian voters who ended California’s marriage equality.

The Mormon Church made nice sounding noises and is in internally division.

Something that the Anglican Church in Canada was also torn apart over, people who want to be inclusive vs those who want to be exclusive.

People selling exclusive do not deserve to be tax exempt nor considered to be offering a public service or conferring any benefits.

As an atheist, I often get asked by Godbots about what is the most tolerable religion, and they never accept the answer none. I am not sure why they are so obssessed with making people say Buddhism is the best one, they all have the same ZERO EVIDENCE.

The only religions that might be a bit tolerable are the ones you must be born into and cannot just convert into. Those that do not recruit. But only to the point where they impair the functioning in the larger society to work and play well, which you cannot do if you actually think other people deserve hell. none, they all have the same none at all in terms of evidence or credibility. they are about social stability, keeping people in places on the myth of born to that existence.

Homosexual is not just something that White People have, it is across all demographics and most likely – the evolutionary function is to think of the world in terms not of populating it, but decorating it and making it as nice for people as it can be.